polychrome and sweetness, sweetheart you're perfection
by everybreatheverymove
Summary: (Prompt. One-shot.) She's flushed cheeks from fatigue or the warm summer air, Mike isn't sure which. She's brown curls with sunkissed highlights, pink lips chapped from too much time in the sun and a lack of chapstick. She's all hazel eyes and baggy borrowed shirts, polychrome and sweetness, and Mike Wheeler is absolutely smitten.


**I'm back from my little hiatus - moved and ready to write - and I come bearing fluff and feels. Yes, it's similar to other one-shots I've posted before but, really, what better way to get me back into my Mileven writing groove, or for you to _read_ what I write, than a cutesy little prompt on a Monday? Enjoy.**

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"I know it's the middle of the night," El speaks into her com, soft voice muffled by what Mike can only assume is her pillow, the orange one with the frills around the edges, "but can you come over, please?"

He knows he probably shouldn't. He's got school - last day of eighth grade - first thing in the morning, and his mom's still pissed at him for skipping math last Friday. (But, you know, Hopkins was a dick teacher so Mike feels it's totally justified).

Besides, he can just rush back home in the morning and take a page from Steve's book and climb up a drainpipe... that is if Hopper hasn't already found him and kicked him out on his ass by then. Which, yeah, that's likely what's going to happen.

"Mike?"

El sniffles, voice breaking on the 'e', and he's putty then. His girlfriend -and he doesn't think he's _ever _going to tire of getting to call her that - sounds sleepy. He should probably just tell her to get some rest, tell that he'll see her tomorrow once school's let out for summer and they're free to spend every waking hour together. But, really, he knows she's not a great sleeper, and she's been having nightmares of late that she doesn't want to trouble the chief with.

So what kind of boyfriend would he be if he didn't immediately toss his comic book aside (and Peter Parker was just about to kick ass!) to slip his sneakers on, all before picking up his intercom to reply and almost knocking a lamp over in the process.

"I'll be right there, El." He tells her, gentle, with a flick of his hair from out of his eyes, "Don't start reading without me."

Sometimes he thinks Lucas has a point. "Man, you're so far gone," his friend likes to tell him, at least twice a week. Mike usually retorts with something in kind, reminding Lucas that he's just as taken by his own girlfriend, and then they usually argue over who's the more lovesick of the two until someone intervenes.

But maybe Lucas knew something he didn't. Maybe what Mike thought was chivalry was actually just a desperate need to please, and he _did _like to please El.

(It's not like he was waiting on her hand and foot, anyway. He knows where to draw the line between love and obsession, and he's just a teenage boy on the verge of actually falling in love for the first time, if he hasn't already. So… maybe he _is _too far gone, and he's been too blind to see it, but he doubts that whatever he's feeling for her is anything but pure adoration.)

He makes it to the cabin within twenty minutes, backpack in tow and new bike parked up around the right side of the building so Hopper doesn't see it. It's eight o'clock and Mike knows he leaves work early on Thursdays. He taps on El's bedroom window softly, knuckles rapping against the dirtied glass. There's still a couple of heart shapes drawn in the dirt where she and Max had flung mud at the window last weekend, hands covered with grass and flowers in their hair. Mike smiles, eyes flickering up to her face when she draws her curtains open, arms outspread from behind the glass.

She's got a blanket lazily thrown over her shoulders, and the faintest traces of a grin are playing on her face.

"Mike," the girl draws the window up, fists still clutching at her curtains, "That was fast."

He shrugs his backpack off, drops it inside her room from over the frame. "Guess I've just got the hang of it," he says. It takes a minute, but he lands on the rug in her room with the softest of thumps, long legs catching on the carpet. El stifles a laugh, and she extends a hand to help him up.

"El?" Hopper's voice rings out from the living room, and a chair scratches against the wooden floor then.

"I'm fine!" She rushes to her door, peeking her head out to make sure he's not coming in closer. He's still sitting at their small kitchen table, a cigarette in one hand and the sports section in the other, but he's got a leg sticking out as though he's ready to leap out of his seat at any second. "Just… fell off my chair."

Hopper doesn't look at her, but she catches the small smile tugging at his mustache (and, oh, she still hasn't gotten used to that). He turns the page of his paper, licking his thumb and forefinger, voice gruff, "Say hi to Mike for me."

El's innocent façade drops, and her shoulders slump, "Will do."

"Door open."

El pulls it to an almost-close then, leaving only an inch of space between the door and the frame. She twirls back around to find Mike sat cross-legged on her bed, "_Anne of the Island"_ open to page 213 in front of him.

She unwraps the blanket from around her shoulders then, plopping down next to him on the bed. El nestles into her pillows, moving to place the frilly one behind Mike, slotted between his back and the wall.

"How do you look like that?"

She's flushed red cheeks from fatigue or the warm summer air, Mike isn't sure which. She's brown curls with sunkissed highlights, pink lips chapped from too much time in the sun and a lack of chapstick. She's all hazel eyes and baggy borrowed shirts, polychrome and sweetness, and Mike Wheeler is absolutely smitten, certain beyond his years that he's never ever going to find her more adorable than he does right now.

El's brows furrow at his words, confused. She glances down at her outfit, plucking at the hem of her old shirt, "I-"

"No, you're," Mike starts, and he stretches his legs out in front of him with a breath and a shake of his head, "I meant, how do you…" He turns to face her properly, eyes wide and amusement clear on his face, "You always look so perfect."

"Oh." El's lips part, the smallest of noises catching in her throat as a blush rises to her cheeks. She gets it. "I don't know." She pulls her pillow closer to her face then, peeking up at him through her lashes, and Mike can tell how sleepy she is now. "I'm like you."

"Like me?" Mike blinks.

She nods, a strand of brown hair falling from past her ear to fall in her face, "You're perfect, too."

He smiles, his head ducking but his eyes remaining focused on hers. He's not entirely sure what to reply to that without sounding like a complete cheeseball. "Then I guess _we're _perfect."

(Yeah, that was definitely cheesy. Way to go, Wheeler.)

(But maybe cheese is allowed when your girlfriend's an ass-kicking, genetically gifted, _beautiful_ fourteen-year-old. She's basically a superhero. She's like the real-life lovechild of Jean Gr-)

"Mike?"

He snaps to then, realising it's been a moment, and that she's just been sat patiently waiting for him to drop back down to Earth, to remember why he's there.

El grins, teeth flashing as the corners of her eyes slowly crease into an all-knowing beaming, smile, "Can we read now?" She asks, voice smooth as honey.

(Oh, he's _putty_.)

"Yeah!"


End file.
